Edited picture causing stir on LSU campus

The original picture was taken at Saturday's game between LSU and South Carolina. In it, you can see the group " Painted Posse" has crosses painted over their hearts.

"The Painted Posse, they are a religious organization so this has been a long game day tradition for them. They always dress in body paint, and they always wear the crosses," said LSU paper, The Reveille's, managing editor Emily Harrington.

In the edited picture, the crosses on all four men are gone.

"We do not manipulate any photos. We are a news organization so we don't want to alter what happened," said Harrington.

Instead, University Relations sent out the picture in an email to all the students who attended Saturday's game.

"This was just a promotional email to fans thanking them for coming to the game and soliciting feedback on their experience of the game," said LSU's Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations Herb Vincent.

But the picture was edited and the crosses were airbrushed out, which offended some students on campus.

"A lot of people on Facebook noticed and it was quite a stir," said Harrington.

But your ticket that gets you in the stadium, has a clause in it that allows the university to do this. It reads, "User grants the SEC non-exclusive, transferable, perpetual right and license to use his or her name and likeness if it is included in any broadcast, photograph, or other media of the event."

Vincent said they do Photoshop and airbrush pictures for better overall quality just like they did in 2000 to make Nick Saban look thinner on the cover of the media guide.

This picture though, Vincent said was not meant to offend anyone.

"When we sent out a communication to our sports fans, we don't like to send out any message that may be interpreted as a political message or religious message or anything like that so that's why the airbrushing was done on the photograph. If we had to do it all over again, we'd probably just pick another photograph," said Vincent.

It's been at least 10 years "The Painted Posse" group has been painting their bodies with crosses at LSU.